Bienvenidos!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

MOFTed again

Yes ladies and gentlemen, it's that time of the year again - tournament time! The MOFT was this weekend and I did miles better than last year. We had lots of fencers enter and a really good clutch of results. Mario did fantastically well on both days, despite threatening to drop out of foil and then complaining that he was too achey to do well in epee. He went undefeated in foil until his very last DE, losing out 15-7 to some dude from Manchester. He was trailing 10-2 at one point then got five very sweet hits in a row to bring him back up, but unfortunately was running out of steam and couldn't overtake the other guy's score. He ended up ranked 11th of 91, and won the best novice trophy to boot! I had a so-so time in the pools, winning four and losing six overall (I think), but then I won my first DE and went through to the L16. Unfortunately I lost that one 15-2 to the woman who came 2nd, but I thought the president gave two hits against me which I was sure should have been my parry-ripostes. I need to work on my point control as well, as about five times when I gained priority my blade skidded off her shoulder and she counter-attacked in time. I'm liking the fact that I can remember what happened this year though - I hardly remember anything about last year's MOFT, save that I forgot the plate DEs only went to 10 points and timed myself out at 8-6 down. Grr. And that I ate chips with mayonnaise and mustard in the Font on Saturday. I also won the best novice trophy for women's foil, so now we have two huge mounted foils to hang up somewhere... In epee, I had a really good run in the pools, winning 8 of my 10 matches. I ranked 14th after this, gained a by in the first round of DEs, then faced the 19th seed in the L32. We kept getting doubles for about 5 hits, then I'd score one, then she'd score one, then I tried to change my tactics to get ahead but it backfired and she started picking me off. After that I couldn't get a hit on her and lost 15-8. I was annoyed with myself for that. I think maybe I should have hung back when I was one point up and let her come to me. Ah well. I ended up 19th of 48 though so I did quite well. Mario did about the same in the pools I think, then won both his L64 and L32 DEs before meeting Tall Matt in his L16. Their final score was something like 15-7, and Matt ended up joint 3rd, but Mario did really well with two L16 finishes in both weapons.

Over the next few months we have the regionals, the Keele 'open', the Birmingham International, the Nottingham and the Glasgow open, and the Wrexham Open the week before I go to Panama (ooh, that reminds me, must go to STA to find out what's going on with my flight...) so will be quite busy. Should be fun though.

We decided to do the valentine's thing a day early so we're going out to dinner tonight and going fencing tomorrow instead. Everywhere was booked up for Tuesday and it's a bit inconvenient anyway. Not that we need a dedicated day to say 'I love you' though. I dunno. It's nice to have someone to share Valentine's day with but then again it's a bit sappy and over-rated. And I have lectures all day anyway.

I need to go do stuff, and this entry has been a lot of fencing news and not much else. Laters all xxx

1:44 p.m. - 2006-02-13

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

previous - next

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------